


Armin's Notebook

by justkillthetitan



Series: Eruri Week 2019 [5]
Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: 104th Training Corps - Freeform, Attempt at Humor, Eruri Week, Eruri Week 2019, M/M, Not Beta Read, Rumors, armin is done with everyone, armin's pov, just a fun fic, ooc armin?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-28
Updated: 2019-08-28
Packaged: 2020-09-27 09:49:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,314
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20405737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justkillthetitan/pseuds/justkillthetitan
Summary: That one fic where everyone talks about the (rumor) romantic nature of the relationship between commander Erwin Smith and captain Levi. And Armin did nothing wrong.Eruri Week 2019.Day 5: Rumors.





	Armin's Notebook

**Author's Note:**

> This work is inspired by the fanfic "Just Good Friends" by KnowingNoMore (how the heck do you put a link here?) Anyways, here is the direct link so you can copy and paste it: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14810856

The truth is, it really wasn't Armin's fault. Not really.

He didn't started, but he didn't end it either. Which, yeah, it is bad, but not so bad as the person who started it. He hadn't intended to become this. Dammit, he hadn't intended to be anything than just a normal notebook for notes.

The truth is, it was Connie's fault.

When Armin had started using his new notebook, gifted to him by Eren as a birthday present back in November, it had been to write down notes for their classes. 

Titan facts, some notes about their new expeditions every now and then, and thorn pages due to the small notes that he left Eren as reminders. 

There was nothing special about.

The notebook was grey with blank white pages, the first page hold his name on it. Looking back at it now, Armin should had ripped his name off the notebook when things started to get out of hand. Not that that would had helped much, since he figured no one would be brave enough to face the consequences.

It started back in early January. At that time the notebook was still just a notebook until Connie decided to draw a trashy version of Horse Jean on Armin's notebook as a proof that he could draw something. Jean hadn't been a fan of it, and so he drew Connie with his fingers up his nose and a very filthy title. Then he drew the first version of Donkey Eren. The worst was, Jean did know how to draw. And so, his drawings were hilarious. 

Armin hadn't thorn off the drawings, because he enjoyed them way too damn much. Up until this point, things had been light and warm. Nothing to worry about. 

But then the girls has taken his notebook to look at the famous drawings. Armin had lost sight of his notebook for three days until Mikasa brought it back to him. What he found was a section title _ Rumors_, and below it a series of numbered sentences written in different handwritings. All of them featuring the most obvious and silliest rumors ever. From _ 'I hear Krista likes girls' _ to _ 'I heard Jean is secretly in love with Eren'. _

Armin had thorn off the pages and continue with his life. Then his notebook had disappear once again, and when he got it back from Sasha, the section of rumors was there again. This time featured a list of more alarming (and stupid) rumors. From _ 'Is Squad Leader Hange a boy or a girl? I think both' _ to _ 'Squad Leader Mike is the cross breed of a human and a dog. Thus, giving him his inhuman ability to smell things out of human range noses' _.

The one that shook him the most, and made him realize that people should really calm their stupid damn thoughts, was about captain Levi and commander Erwin.

_ 'I think captain Levi and commander Erwin are dating.' _

Armin was about to ripped the pages and set it on fire, when Sasha snatched the notebook from his hands. Hugging it to her heart, she scolded Armin for getting rid of the previous pages and trying to burn the new ones. Armin professionally argued about the fact that it was _ his _ notebook and he could do whatever he pleased with it, but when ten girls team up to aggressively turn down your arguments, there is not much you could do.

His notebook disappeared again. Two days later he got a brand new notebook from the girls. This one was navy blue and it was just as nice, so Armin forgot about the previous one.

Later he discovered that the grey notebook, now title The Rumors Book for originally, was getting passed down from trainee to trainee. Anyone could write anything on it, add to different theories, and pretty much do whatever they want with it.

A glimpse to the pages convinced Armin to never look at it again. The rumors were not only useless, but now they had become absurd. He also noted that there was a whole page dedicated to the supposed secret relationship between the commander and the captain.

Armin didn't needed graphic details about the possible intimate relationship between his superiors. Or anyone's.

***

Monday morning started off on the normal side of the spectrum. The first ten minutes had been just like any day with a bunch of trainees taking their food, getting to their usual tables, and eating with small talks every now and then. 

This morning Eren and Jean were doing their usual routine of getting on each others throats before anyone was awake enough to stop them. Mentally betting on Jean winning the current argument, a blanket of silence seem to have been placed on the room almost as suddenly as death on an expedition.

For a moment Armin panicked thinking that he had gone deaf because yeah, his mind works that way. But it was Squad Leader Hange's loud laugh that made him realize he hadn't gone deft, and when he looked around to room to see why the heck a bunch of hormone-filled teenagers had stopped being teenagers, he found that everyone had developed an interesting fascination with their food. 

Maybe Armin needed glasses, but the food didn't contained the secrets to humanity for any reason. Now, Armin was a curious person who likes to pick on details. So what do you do when everyone seem to follow an uncall order but you don't? You find the source. 

To Armin's eyes nothing was out of normal. Their superiors seem to be obvious to the odd behavior of the other recruits. Squad leader Mike was doing that weird thing of sniffing, Squad Leader Hange was laughing at something that Nanaba said, and the Commander and Captain Levi had just sat down on the table with their trays.

The silence continue for a painful ten minutes in which Armin tried to asked Eren about this sudden change in their behavior only to be hushed by the nearest ten individuals. Squad leader Hange had laugh at the sink of their scolding, while captain Levi raised an eyebrow at their behavior, and Armin frown deeply mad and confuse.

Once their superiors had exit the room, the silence curtain seem to have lift, and everyone rushed to talk to one another.

"They arrived at the same time just as they have done in the past three weeks. If they are not sleeping in the same room, then they are at least waiting for each other to eat together which is super cute anyway," a redhead said. "So romantic."

"Who did?" Armin asked confused. Besides him Jean slapped him on the back, Armin let out a small groan of pain.

"Don't be oblivious, Armin!" Jean said. Armin frown. "The commander and the captain, you know? The rumors get better and better every time I check the notebook."

At the sight of Armin's confused expression, his companions, except Mikasa, sight in frustration. It was Eren who, unexpectedly, pulled up the grey notebook Armin had lost many weeks ago.

"Read this," Eren instructed. But before Armin could, captain Levi enter the room once again.

"Move brats," he said at loud. "You are here to train and fight, not to gossip."

Jean snatched the notebook from Eren and hid it on his lap. And when their short superior left, Jean gave it to Armin. "Read it," he said before walking away with everyone else. 

***

It was late at night when Armin got the time to read the notebook. With the small flame of the candle with him, Armin was seriously considering setting the notebook on fire with the candle and let everyone hate him for the rest of their lives.

The commander and the captain were the only members that had an entire section just for them. It was a smash of 'evidence' and rumors together along with some comments and ratings for each item. 

Someone had rated a 8/10 to the idea of captain Levi willingly joining the scouts just for commander Erwin. There were multiple assumptions about whether or not they slept together, both in the sexual and non sexual way, or who was the cheesiest from them both. A lot of people think that that the serious, intimidating, and respectful commander is a dork deep inside, while the captain was more of a sentimental and cried often, yet he refused to acknowledge this.

The comments written by different individuals had the same essence paraphrased in different ways. There was an alarming amount of people who loved this idea, this rumors of forbidden love between their superiors. The comments were not aggressive, but some were borderline obsessive and creepy. Most of the content regarding his superiors could be call _ cute,_ the trainers supporting the relationship between two of their strongest assets to humanity, had the rumors be truth.

For now their story was only an invention created by multiple hormones, cheesy love stories, and fantasies. Armin felt bad for them.

***

_ Humanity sucks, and maybe we should let ourselves be consumed by the titans, _ Armin thought. _ Damn that notebook. _

Things had escaped to the point where Armin Was about to advice the commander to dump 90% of their current soldiers and get some fresh ones with better, functionable brains. 

Thing were ridiculous. Not only was the evidence taken out of their own failed romantic fantasies, but Armin didn't need to know about whether or not the captain was loud on bed. Or how long was the commander's dick for that matter. 

Smiling to each other, whispering to each other, and brushing hands or shoulders with each other weren't exclusive actions of romantic relationships. Every innocent thing, every single starved and dried miniscule interaction between their superiors was been recorded in the grey notebook, not the Rumors Notebook because Armin _ refused _ to call it that, and if that wasn't alarming, Armin didn't know what else could be.

The worst part was that their superiors didn't seem to noticed the weird behavior of their young soldiers. And thus, no one had stop them so far.

Armin could ignore their gossip by hiding inside the forest to have some quiet time, and to have Erwin Smith's and Levi's names far from him. He could hold it up, keep himself from splitting into a rampage of rage and frustration had the stupid hobby of creeping on their superiors not interrupted their training.

Someone needs to stop them.

Their current training exercise was supposed to help develop their skills of teamwork. Nothing too fancy, they had been placed in random groups and set off to the forest to get has many fake titans killed together. It wasn't the best way to exercise such skills, but Armin didn't care as long as they didn't had to run for two hours straight. 

Everything should had been great, but the excise soon turned into a spy secret mission when someone spotted the captain hanging out with the commander somewhere in the forest. As reluctant has Armin had been, he was dragged by Sasha to said mission. 

The amount of excitement that transpired everyone else's bodies, except Armin's and Mikasa's, was a joke because the commander and the captain were doing nothing more than sharing company under a large tree. For what Armin could see, the action was innocent and friendly. Two friends hanging out while discussing work matters as Armin could guess by the huge map extended on the ground. It was a weird place to be, Armin wasn't going to lie. Unlike their fans, both man had their private rooms and the commander had an office where they could hang out in private. This part of the forest was reserved for soldier's like Armin who needed to get away from the unprivate life they had.

They stood hidden behind the trees and the bushes, creeping on their superiors. Armin was about to push Connie off the tree so their superiors could noticed the multiple eyes that were watching them. Armin respected them, both man were incredible soldiers, but for fucks sake, can't any of them feel twenty pairs of eyes staring directly at them? God thing most titans were stupid.

He was about to push Connie when, just as the curtain of silence, to everyone but Armin and Mikasa inhaled a sharp breath of oxygen. Searching for the source of such response, Armin could make out the commander leaning towards the captain. Armin held a deep breath, the next actions could determine the answer for everybody's question, and thus saving or damming Armin for the rest of his life. 

They were so closed and the anticipation of the next action made the atmosphere around them feel heavy and tense. They were having a moment, Armin thought and felt bad for intruding. But the commander retracted, and on his hand he held a stick of charcoal. Both man concentrated on the map in front of them, breaking the hearts of the majority of their soldiers.

There was a small sound of indignant squeaks, and Armin saw Jean covering the mouth of a very angry looking Sasha. A frustrated scream coming from someone behind Armin shook everyone to reality. Under them, both the commander and the captain had stood up at the sound of said scream. 

But before the man took a step further, everyone was fleeing the scene already. But Armin swear he could feel captain Levi's eyes on him.

***

Someone had started a romantic story between the commander and the captain days after the forest incident. Armin, who had read many books in his short life, could positively, and truthfully, say that it was shitty.

It was a mixture between slice of life, romance, and sex scenes smash together. All of them with different characterization of their superiors that changed as the story continue. As far as Armin could tell, everyone was responsible for writing something in it. He could make out Eren's messy handwriting, and Jean's neater handwriting in a fight scene. He needs to seat them both down and give them a lesson on grammar rules. He also needed to explain to Krista and Sasha the way anatomy works. 

It was porn about their superiors with a weak plot and questionable anatomy capabilities, and Armin couldn't expect any less than that.

He couldn't even get more than ten pages of the story before deciding that cringing every sentence or so was not gonna do anything for him.

The most terrifying thing, besides his comrades strange obsession with an inexistant relationships, was captain Levi himself. Armin could feel the captain's eyes on him every time he walked past him on the hallways. It was uncomfortable and scary at the same time. Armin could guess that the captain wasn't sure of whatever he thought Armin did or didn't. Maybe it was the possibility of Armin spying on them that day in the forest, or Armin's tendency to sneak out after bedtime and wander outside. Either way, the captain hadn't confronted him yet, and Armin hoped it will stay that way forever.

Back to his stupid friends, the infamous notebook had almost run out of pages. With the majority of it covered with the almost repetitive content of their superiors, soon they will have to get another notebook to continue their pointless investigation. 

As Armin flipped away from the horrendous story, he switch between giving a once over to the over all content and writing down notes about their current class. As captain Levi entered the room, Armin closed the notebook, still wondering what the heck was Pound Time.

He slide away the grey notebook discreetly towards Eren. From the corner of his eye he could see the captain slowly walking around the long desks. Every now and then he would stop and stand behind a recruit. When he passed down Armin's row, the man stood behind Armin who tried to look as calm as possible, and then left the room. A silence curtain had drawn on them, and everyone inside the classroom didn't even dare to whisper to one another. 

Maybe, this would calm them down enough to not get caught. While Armin always made sure to not be dragged into their mess, everyone else didn't seem to give a shit big enough about getting caught or not. At the beginning everyone had been cautions, too cautions from his observations, but has time passed, their moves became sloppier. 

Like that one time Connie and Sasha were almost caught looking around the hallway that lead to the commander's room. (Captain Levi had appeared out of nowhere and had given them a hard slapped behind the head and two weeks of cleaning duty). Or the time Ymir had asked a very private, very out of place question to the commander. (Who had send her to captain Levi and had handed her the right punishment).

But even so, Armin hadn't gave him too much suspiciousness besides that day in the forest if the captain had even saw him. But it seems like the captain was more suspicious of him than everyone else, and as if to remark this, it was the captain himself who stopped Armin from fleeing after class.

"Anything you might want to tell me, Arlert?" He said in that flat tone of his that made Armin wonder whether or not he had emotions.

Armin shook his head. "Nothing to tell, Sir."

And as he walked away from his superiors after being dismissed, Armin could still feel his glare on him.

***

Standing in front of the commander's desk, Armin felt more at ease than he thought he would. For granted, he had never imagined himself to be in this kind of position. Armin was a good soldier. He followed the rules and stayed away from trouble, yet here he was.

He was deadpanning and if you look close, you could see the fury swirling inside him. He wasn't mad at the commander or the captain. He was mad at Connie and everyone else who started those stupid rumors. 

Armin wasn't sure how the captain found out about the notebook. Lie, he actually did. 

With the sudden increase of captain Levi's and commander Erwin's check ups during training and classes, everyone had laid extremely low. No one had been called to the commander's office as they hadn't found whatever they intended to find. A few weeks after the tense observations they had to go through, both superiors had stopped their pop up observations. Everyone was thrilled about it, and too excited for obvious reasons of creepiness. 

No one had dare to even mentioned the notebook with their superiors popping out of thin air in the most random of places and times. But now that they had stopped, everyone was excited to add their new observations due to increase of public displays of affection (the smallest of touches) between their superiors. 

Armin found out that everyone was too dumb when Sasha was caught with the notebook by captain Levi, writing down a new scene of their ever increasing fictional love story. He couldn't grasped the fact that no one never even suspected of their superiors' plan. Classy to let everyone think they had stopped looking for their objective, let them built up their confidence and relief enough to lower their guard to stupidity levels, and get caught in the most common cliche.

It had been in the middle of breakfast, and when captain Levi had taken the notebook from her hand, he only needed to flip the notebook open to a random page to know what the heck was going on. Everyone looked guilty, with the exception of Armin and Mikasa, and for what Armin could tell, he was more than ready to murder everyone on the spot.

Armin knew this was his end by the shaking figures of his comrades. And when the captain asked who the fuck owned the notebook, Armin wasn't surprise in the least when everyone, except Mikasa, pointed their fingers directly at him. He was fucked.

The commander held up Armin's damn grey notebook. Not his, but apparently his now. 

"I take it you recognize this notebook," the commander said in that monotone and somehow intimidating tone that made soldiers shake on their feet. "Mind to explain why this happened?"

To Armin's surprise, he didn't felt intimidated by the commander or the captain, who was questionable sitting on the commander's desk as if there wasn't any other surface to sit on. Armin was glad, thankful. Because the notebook was confiscated, and he didn't had to deal with it anymore. 

"It's not mine, Sir," Armin estated. Lame, but truth nonetheless. 

"At least twenty-five individuals confirmed that the notebook is yours," the captain chimed in. "I highly doubt twenty-five people would come up with the same person to blame in one second."

"It was mine, but now it isn't, Sir" he informed.

"It has your name on it," the captain said.

"Things happen," Armin responded. He could had been such a good lawyer in another life.

They stared intensively at each other for about ten second before the commander ended their small feud. 

"If it isn't yours, than whose is it?" The commander asked. "The… creative and inappropriate contents of this notebook has been clearly written by multiple individuals."

Armin sight, and started the retell his side of the story. He didn't tried to cover anyone involved because fuck them. 

He told them everything. From the first drawings that started their giddiness, to the sudden appearance of the rumors page. As Armin explained some of the contents of the notebook, he flipped through it and showed it to his superiors while giving them a few guesses of the authors. He did so with captain Levi's accurate comments of its shitty content, and the commander's stoic face even while scanning the explicit erotic story regarding him. It was awkward, painful, but it had to be done. 

"Why didn't you reported the existence of this notebook?" The commander questioned to what Armin only shrugged.

"I trusted my fellow comrades to stop their inappropriate behavior," Armin explained. He hadn't reported the existence of the notebook because a tiny little flick of his hoped that they would stopped by themselves. Another tiny part of him was afraid that the knowledge of the notebook was gonna make things awkward between the two superiors, which would most likely make things awkward for everyone. But as it seems, they didn't look bother by the whole thing. Only a little annoyed and a bit of disbelief. "But they didn't."

"Tch, this brats don't even know how the human body works," the captain commented probably checking out one of the many sex scenes written by Sasha and Krista. "Is that shitty glasses' handwriting?"

"Did you contributed to any of this?" the commander questioned, ignoring Levi's comments.

Armin shook his head.

"I didn't, but you can compare my handwriting, Sir," he responded.

With a heavy sigh, the commander leaned against the back of his chair.

"I see. I will do in fact check for comparisons," the commander informed. "You are dismissed, Arlert."

Armin didn't care about the rumors. He didn't like to fantasize about anyone's relationship, and surely not his superiors, for both his own good and for theirs. He was curious, but not curious enough to have jumped on the train of useless rumors. But he was a strategists.

He stopped with his hand suspended midway between his body and the door. He looked over his shoulder to his superiors, and with the best poker face he could muster, he asked.

"Is it truth?"

***

Walking out of the commander's office, Armin was met by a crowd of worry recruits. Half of them were worried about the type of psychological and physical punishment he was sentenced to, the other half were worried about Armin spilling their names to their superiors. Which, he did. He was petty like that.

A worry Eren grabbed his shoulders and shook him lightly. "Are you okay?" He asked worryingly. "How do you feel? Can you tell me what your name is?"

Freeing himself from his best friends' grasp, Armin stood away from the expecting audience. What they expected, Armin didn't know. Maybe they expected him to break down crying due to the punishment inflicted on him, which had been none, or maybe expected him to scream at each and every single one of them. Which he wanted to do.

"They told me the truth," Armin announced. "About your stupid rumors."

That solid statement seem to change the mood in a 180 degree angle. The worryingly expressions on their faces shifted to something that looked more like victory and excitement. 

"Tell, tell!" They softly chanted, too afraid of being heard by the men inside the office behind them.

Armin deadpanned. 

"No," he said and walked away, leaving their upset stares behind him.

Maybe that would be enough punishment for everyone.

***

But it wasn't. 

Armin and Mikasa had been sentenced to heavy training for four days due to their neglectance in reporting the notebook. Everyone else had to endure harsh and pointless training due to their stupid notebook for weeks. Every now and and then their punishment would change, like that one time they all had to endure a sex talk teached by squad leader Hange while Armin and Mikasa hanged around the mess hall.

But today they were suffering longer training sessions. 

Sitting under the shadows of a tree along with Mikasa, Armin had the perfect view to his exhausted comrades and friends groaning due to their punishment. 

He also had the perfect view to observe the exact moment when the commander and the captain snuck away from the group, and entered inside one of the empty supply rooms. Armin shiver, thinking about what they could be doing inside.

Some rumors were true.


End file.
